When Jake Fraser-McGurk walked off Manuka Oval after his breathtaking innings of 41 from 18 balls against the West Indies on Tuesday, Kerry O’Keeffe said out loud what most cricket fans were thinking.
“It was the same feeling you got when Warner debuted against South Africa [in 2009] at the MCG,” O’Keeffe said on Fox Cricket’s broadcast.
“[Fraser-McGurk] is box office. It’s confirmed. What an explosive dig it was. He will put bums on seats.”
Fraser-McGurk is averaging 25.5 from two one-day internationals but that doesn’t tell half the story of a rising star.
While he won’t be able to maintain his eye-catching international strike rate of 221.73, influential Australian cricket figures are quietly confident a new diamond has been unearthed.
It has been 15 years since Warner hit 89 off 43 balls against South Africa in a T20 at the MCG in front of 75,000 supporters who knew they were witnessing something special.
Warner was 22 – a year older than Fraser-McGurk is now – and had already forged a reputation as a controlled power-hitter with the propensity to clear the rope.
“He made a century recently for his club side against Manly and he hit nine sixes,” former Cricket NSW high-performance manager Alan Campbell told this masthead in a 2009 interview. “Balls were landing on roofs, car alarms were going off, people walking to the shops were getting injured. They had to chase balls down the road almost to the beach.”
Anyone living near Karen Rolton Oval in Adelaide would probably say the same about Fraser-McGurk after he bludgeoned a 29-ball hundred against Tasmania in a one-day match.
It was the fastest one-day century in professional cricket history.
In 2011, Glenn Maxwell recorded the fastest half-century in Australian domestic one day cricket by clubbing 50 runs from 19 balls.
His innings of 61 from 27 balls, batting at No.8, helped Victoria get home against Tasmania off the final ball of the match.
Maxwell has been mentoring Fraser-McGurk after observing his prowess with the willow.
Jake Fraser-McGurk is being mentored by Glenn Maxwell.Credit: Getty
“No one in Australia is better to watch than Fraser-McGurk,” Maxwell tweeted in December. “Easily the most talented young batter in the country. His potential doesn’t actually have a ceiling.”
If Fraser-McGurk was left-handed, there would be countless comparisons to Warner. However, being a right-handed Victorian has greats of the game feeling like they are watching a young Maxwell.
“There’s so much Glenn Maxwell in Fraser-McGurk it’s not funny,” said Mark Waugh in Fox Cricket commentary on Tuesday. “He’s a triple X-factor [player].”
The difference between Maxwell and Warner is the latter was a genuine three-format player for Australia.
Like Warner, Fraser-McGurk is showing his flair against the white ball and it might be performances in shorter formats that lead to higher red ball honours.
The sample size is too small to accurately predict whether Fraser-McGurk can emulate Warner’s feats but there is an audacity and confidence about the youngster that indicates he is tracking in the right direction.
However, Fraser-McGurk hasn’t been picked in Australia’s T20 squad for upcoming matches against the West Indies and New Zealand.
Matt Short’s hamstring injury could have paved the way for Fraser-McGurk to come into the T20 side but selectors have called in all-rounder Aaron Hardie, who was caught behind for two off five balls in Canberra.
Fraser-McGurk certainly has work to do in red ball cricket. He averages just 22.39 from 13 first-class matches with a strike rate of 64 (Warner’s first-class strike-rate was 70.76).
With Warner now retired from Tests and Usman Khawaja on the way out in the next few years, there will be gaps to fill at the top of the Australian order. Fraser-McGurk’s average of 27.80 in this year’s Sheffield Shield season doesn’t make for pretty reading but he is a young player.
Warner hadn’t played a first-class match when he debuted for Australia. His final return of 8786 Test runs at 44.59 with 26 centuries is proof you don’t need to be a red ball specialist from day one.
Fraser-McGurk and Warner played together three times last month for the Dubai Capitals in the UAE’s T20 League, with the youngster outscoring Warner on two of three occasions.
Scores of 54 from 25 balls and 41 off 17 balls has put Fraser-McGurk’s name up in lights.
Ricky Ponting, who was at the other end in 2009 when Warner carved up the likes of Jacques Kallis and Makhaya Ntini, said last month on Triple M that Fraser-McGurk was the most exciting player in the Big Bash.
“If you’ve got guys like [Glenn] Maxwell and [Marcus] Stoinis and Tim David playing in the BBL, for me to say that about him means I see something pretty special in him,” Ponting said.
Fraser-McGurk insists he doesn’t want to just become a T20 mercenary.
“I said to [South Australia coach] Jason Gillespie: ‘I want to be a three-format player for Australia later in my career’,” Fraser-McGurk told cricket.com.au this week.
“That’s my goal, I’m working towards that. That’s the reason why I moved to South Australia … I wanted to get a fresh start.
“But I didn’t think it was going to happen as quick as this and to get one format under my belt now is amazing.”
